Summer is coming

There are four days left in the school year for Alden.  He's ready to be done.  He's excited about being in the 4th grade.  Since he is in a 3-5 self contained classroom we will have the same teacher again next year.  He actually went up a class a year early (grade 2) because he was the top of his old class and they had a lot of kids moving into the K-2 class.  So he's had this teacher for two years now and she has been the best thing to happen to him as far as academics go.

With summer of course comes the opportunity for trips, learning outside the classroom, and doing lots of fun hobbies.  So far we have two things lined up for June.  We will be going to Botanical Gardens at the beginning of June and then to the High Museum.  Then one weekend we will be attending Repticon to look at all the cool creepy crawly critters that they have on display.  He's really excited about it so I'm sure it will be a blast.

He received A TON of science experiments for Christmas and his birthday that we have been waiting to go outside to do because they are messy and fun or just call for not being inside.  I'm sure we'll do lots of crafts and painting as usual.

Today I showed him some really cool and fun educational YouTube videos and we're going to learn the following songs this summer.

I have wanted to take the time to learn The Elements Song for ages but I thought this would be a great teaching moment if we learned it together.

This one is just too cool.

I also plan to teach him the 50 states in alphabetical order song that I learned as a kid but don't know the name of.

So that's what we have going on right now.  See you guys in the summer time!

small update

It's the end of the school year and things have been crazy.  At least one field trip a week, Special Olympics, bookfair, Field Day, Mother's Day, etc.  Alden had a substitute today too so I'm sure that was an interesting change of pace.

Anyway, a brief update and bit of good news.  Alden's Speech Therapist called today and asked if we could update his IEP.  We had his IEP meeting a few months ago so it surprised me that she was calling.  (Plus, as a parent you are always like "OH SHIT WHAT DID HE DO?" when you see that it's the school that is calling.)  Apparently he's started speaking louder, having conversations, and talking more in general at school.  They have noticed he has articulation problems.  This might sound like a bad thing to most people but it's actually pretty terrific.  His IEP will be updated and one of the focuses will be articulation.  A couple years ago this would have been something I didn't think would ever happen, we were just trying to get him to talk TO us instead of AT us.  So anyway YAY ALDEN!  Kicking ass and taking names!!!